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Most of the callers are from villages in the administered territory which has now been under Government for fifty to seventy years. But sometimes much wilder villagers from the non-administered area come in. This week the villagers of Pangsha arrived to discuss their recent misdeeds. They hoped to pacify Bill with the offer to Government of a mithan - a kind of domestic bison worth about Rs200. Our little 'page' Pilow was called in to act as interpreter as he now knows Assamese. He obviously regarded the taking of sixty heads as a tremendous joke and revelled in the talk. While we were having tea by the fire, Bill had three of the headmen in to discuss the matter and as we quietly drank tea and ate sandwiches, they stood peacefully by. But it was only a month since, wild with blood, they had rushed shrieking through the village street spearing women to death and seizing their heads. |
